Murder trial begins in fatal Portland light-rail stabbings

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man charged with fatally stabbing two men who authorities say confronted him during a racist rant on a Portland, Oregon, light-rail train goes to trial Tuesday, two years after the killings in a liberal city.

Jeremy Christian has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, assault and other crimes in connection with the 2017 stabbings. Prosecutors say Christian had shouted racist and anti-Muslim slurs at two young, black female passengers, including one who wore a Muslim headscarf.

Christian, 37, is also charged with assault and menacing for shouting slurs and throwing a bottle at a black woman on another light-rail train the day before the stabbings. A judge last year dismissed charges of aggravated murder, a potential death penalty offense, because of a new Oregon law that narrows the definition of aggravated murder.

The stabbings' racially charged context was a blow for Portland, which prides itself on its liberal and progressive reputation but also grapples with a racist past that included limits on where black families could live and a neo-Nazi community so entrenched that Portland was once nicknamed “Skinhead City.” The deaths were also weeks after a black teen was run down and killed by a white supremacist in a Portland suburb convenience store parking lot — a case that also grabbed headlines.

“The stabbings were felt deeply around Portland because so many people could imagine themselves on that train,” said Lindsay Schubiner, program director at Western States Center, which tracks hate groups. “It felt like an attack on the entire city.”

In the days after the stabbing, photos and video surfaced showing that Christian had recently attended — and spoken at — a rally hosted by a far-right group called Patriot Prayer, whose periodic political events were...